Castium Revelio: “Brilliant, but Scary”
They say art imitates life, so perhaps it’s appropriate that this week’s edition of MuggleNet’s Casting News is more than a little unnerving in some spots and downright disturbing in others. We have trailers guaranteed to put you on edge, featuring Robert Pattinson, Harry Melling, David Thewlis, and Luke Youngblood. We have Hero Fiennes-Tiffin in a role almost as eerie as 11-year-old Tom Riddle. And to top it all off, you can find out what macabre character Daniel Radcliffe and the man who portrayed his father in the Harry Potter films, Adrian Rawlins, shared – more than two decades apart. Much like Hermione, it’s all brilliant… with just the right amount of scary. Castium Revelio!
Harry Potter was often told (and told and told again) how much he had in common with his father, James, but as it turns out, the actors behind those characters have something interesting in common as well: They both played the same role – 23 years apart – in another film.
Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), as we know, starred in the 2012 version of the horror film The Woman in Black as protagonist Arthur Kipps (a slight name change from the character's classic name, Arthur Kidd). But that's a character Adrian Rawlins (James Potter) embodied first in a 1989 British television adaptation. Rawlins spoke with the Express about that coincidence last week. The British TV version aired on – because you've gotta love the Brits – Christmas Eve 1989 and didn't register with Rawlins as a horror story. "In my mind," he said, "I was just embarking on what I thought was a cracking story. It's just very human, and hopefully, you sort of go along with it. It's just that sort of thing like: 'Don't go in that room, for God's sake!' That's why it works." He was also pleased when Radcliffe was brought on to reprise the role in 2012.
That was a really spooky – could you say spooky? – coincidence. But I must say... when I heard Daniel was playing it, it did bring a smile to my face. So I was really delighted when he played that. It's some sort of strange poetic synchronicity in it, I think.
We won't spoil the ending in case some of you haven't seen it yet, but suffice it to say, the Woman in Black and the Grey Lady have, like, zero in common in the benign department.
Meanwhile, proving definitively that magic is real (just go with us on this), British magician Dynamo (Steven Frayne) has paid tribute to those who have inspired him on his journey to stardom. Posting on Twitter that it is "so important to give credit to those who came before us," Dynamo credited not only fellow professional magicians but the man behind the boy wizard himself. You can check out a photo of the pair from Dynamo's post below.
Credit: @Dynamomagician on Twitter
Rawlins also has a new film coming up: Undergods, a collection of what Deadline Hollywood calls "visually impressive and darkly humorous fantasy tales about a series of men whose worlds fall apart after a visit from an unexpected stranger." Rawlins is featured as Dominic, and you can check out the first trailer below. Undergods will make its world premiere August 30 then screen again September 2 at the all-virtual Fantasia International Film Festival from Montréal, Canada.
There was a scene where we went about five miles on a freeway in Estonia with hundreds of cars. So John David [Washington] gets in the passenger seat, and Chris is like, 'Just follow the camera car. Take it easy the first time.' John David turns to me and said, 'Are you, like, a really good driver or something?' So I'm sh**ting myself as I'm whipping between cars at 80 miles an hour, and Chris is behaving like this is completely normal.
Pattinson also provided a bit of insight into the nature of the movie.
You're not just being fed the story. You're trying to uncover the mystery at the same time as the characters in the movie are. A lot of the stuff in this movie is expositional, world-building stuff and a dense story. And the script makes that accessible to a layman. And that's really difficult, to get that balance of making it sound like natural dialogue and trying to get across information that you probably need a PhD to understand properly. And then you have to put it in the mouth of someone like me, who can barely add.
Branagh's Stor is the villain of the story, and he admits to having read the Tenet script more than that of any other project in his career.
It was darker than anything I've ever played. Chris does his homework, so he knew what I had done before and what he didn't want from me. He kept saying, 'You know this character has to be unremittingly evil?' Until finally, on the last day, he said, 'Regarding your character and the darkness? You really understood the memo.' [...] The sense of scale here, even on the page, is something else. It plays as bang-up entertainment, but there's a tonne more to it. Even with 'Dunkirk' and the scale of that, I was aware of my character's relatively contained storyline. The fabric of the script weaves in so many characters across so many countries and layers of plot and meaning. The concept is really bold. It's one of those things that's almost unique to Chris Nolan. It's a massive, action-packed blockbuster that reads as a really personal movie with intellectual dazzle.
Okay. We'll trust R-Patz and K-Bran and join in the hype.
Last week, we gave you a first-look image of Pattinson in his upcoming release The Devil All the Time, also starring Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley), and this week, we've graduated to a trailer! The film will premiere on Netflix on September 16, and in keeping with today's theme, on a creepy scale of one to ten, this one's about a 47.
Elsewhere on the Fiennes front, the actor is featured as British agent Norman Darbyshire in Coup 53, a theatrical feature documentary about the MI6 and CIA coup in 1953 that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Fiennes spoke last year to the New Yorker about the part:
I was not trying to be him. I read the lines, but I try to give them some kind of life. It's a weird sketch-in of an idea of who someone might be. It's a surmise. We don't know who Norman Darbyshire was. [...] Agents have to create intimacies, relationships, trusts with other people that they then have to go and exploit. As an actor, you ask, 'What is going on inside?'
August 19 is the 67th anniversary of the coup, and the film will be holding a virtual cinema event that day with participating partners across the US, Canada, the UK, and Ireland. For details on how to watch, visit Coup 53's official website. You can also check out the teaser below.
Credit: Entertainmnet/Netflix
In a role we let you know about in April 2019, Fiennes-Tiffin plays Brooks, the troubled younger brother of a local sheriff and a boy with a history of abuse and drug use. The movie hit theaters and video on demand on Friday, and Fiennes-Tiffin chatted about his character this week with both Forbes and GQ.
The role itself was something I wanted to do because I found it compelling but also because it helped balance out with some of the roles I've played previously. Going from 'After' to something so different like this and then to go back to do the second 'After' was something I was definitely attracted to. [...] I did a fair bit of research on the effects of similar childhood trauma on people and the effects of prescription drugs and the opioid problem. It's less of an issue in England, so I had to educate myself a bit on that problem [in America].
Asked by GQ about the dark side lurking within his characters of Brooks, Hardin Scott in After, and the young Tom Riddle, Fiennes-Tiffin said that's not something he's been consciously leaning toward and that he hopes to play a few happy-go-lucky nice guys along the way as well.
I'm so early on that I don't really know what my preference is yet. I like to do a bit of both. I guess you see what you're better at, or what you're more suited for. So far, it's been less of the angelic characters. I definitely want to keep trying out both. I really don't have a dream role. I'd love to smash something like 'Indiana Jones' or 'James Bond', but there's so many genres and movies I love. I don't want to put myself in a position where I have something to go for because I just know there's so much value in all of the different roles I'd like to play.
Fiennes-Tiffin also imparted that filming on After We Collided was completed prior to the pandemic, and it is scheduled for video-on-demand release on October 2.
Luke Youngblood (Lee Jordan) is among the cast of the upcoming short film In Hollywoodland, and SyFy Wire has released an exclusive trailer. The dark fantasy places an aspiring actress in an Alice in Wonderland–esque aesthetic as she prepares for a potentially life-changing audition. Youngblood portrays her agent, Rabbit. The short made its debut this week at the Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas, and we'll let you know where it goes from there!
We followed Bill Nighy's (Rufus Scrimgeour) Sometimes Always Never through its paces last year, hoping for a US theater release. But while the pandemic put the kibosh on that, the film is now available for purchase on DVD. This is great news for those of us who've already watched Nighy be awesome multiple times in Emma and need a change of scenery. Click the button below to pick up your copy.
We let you know previously about Peter Mullan's (Corban Yaxley) involvement in the psychological thriller Marionette, but the indie film has now been retitled Repression and is set for a September 28 release in the UK. Mullan plays Dr. McVittie in the story of a therapist (Thekla Reuten, In Bruges) who loses her grip on reality when a ten-year-old boy claims he can control her future. You can check out the trailer below, and we'll let you know if a US release date appears.
In final Potter news, Ben Hibon, the Swiss animation director who teamed up with David Yates (director) to bring us the beautifully depicted The Tale of the Three Brothers in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, has signed on to direct, co-executive produce, and serve as creative lead for Nickelodeon's Star Trek: Prodigy. ComicBook.com says the series will follow "a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning, and salvation." It's set to premiere in 2021, and Hibon is excited to contribute.
Getting the chance to work on an [intellectual property] like 'Star Trek' has been an incredible opportunity, particularly when partnered with the talented teams at Nickelodeon, CBS, and Secret Hideout, who have been pushing the boundaries of what animation and serialized storytelling for younger audiences can deliver.
Festivals: Did they largely entail standing around in the heat with too many other sweaty people, waiting in long lines for smelly restroom facilities, and paying way too much for way too little food and drink? Yep. But by gosh, we miss them anyway. And the people really hurt by their departure, of course, are the artists who made them happen. Recognizing this, Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander) has become involved with FringeMakers, a series of crowdfunding projects being staged to raise money for the acts that would have been performing at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The funds will help ensure the artists will be able to return in 2021.
Among the projects is a weekly virtual variety show that allows venues and performers to keep the proceeds they generate from ticket sales. Underbelly, meanwhile, has launched a crowdfunding campaign that offers several autographed items in exchange for donations, including a signed cast photo of the 2001 Fringe performance of Cabaret, starring Redmayne as the infamous Emcee. You can check out the photo below, and yes, that's actually him on the far right.
Credit: Support Our Artists
By the way, if you're in the market for a new mobile phone and have a whole lot of money to spend, Redmayne recommends the OPPO Find X2.
I cheer-led for, like, five seconds, unwillingly, when I was in high school. I was really bad at it, but I love the imagery of it so much. And [the idea of] going through a house, at a party, really not feeling like you belong... those were the images that came to me right from the beginning with the song. When I was coming up with the video treatment, at first, I thought about the traditional awkwardness of wanting a boy because it felt very high school to me, this song. But the really big loves that I had in school weren't really ever about a boy. I had big crushes, but I was actually completely in love with these girls in school that were a little bit older than me. I just worshipped the ground they walked on. Some of them were nice, and then some of them were not. I just had this idea of wanting to explore the deep desire I had at that age to be accepted, the discomfort that I felt in social settings, that longing for these girls to see me, and the cruelty that young women can display towards each other. I also wanted to incorporate me now, wishing that I could hug or hold that younger person.
Credit: Gravitas Ventures
We let you know in August 2019 that Carmen Ejogo (Seraphina Picquery) had been cast alongside Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) in Showtime's upcoming series Your Honor, and the network released a new teaser this week. The clip is brief but gives us a clear picture of the show's subject matter: Cranston, a respected judge, is caught in a dangerous game when he elects to cover up his son's involvement in a hit-and-run accident. Your Honor will consist of ten episodes and has no release date as yet. We'll keep you posted!
Right. Let’s all go make ourselves a nice, comforting cup of tea and watch a few cat videos to recover from all that creepiness. This might be a job for chocolate as well. We’ll be back next week with more on the latest projects from your Wizarding World favorites!
